rendering artifacts

[xtetra]

Just wondering if someone could tell me what this odd shadow is at the base of the turret of this tank. The faces are actually flat... I did move the lights about a bit and its not that. Also to added a line to triangulate the affected faces bit but no luck. Image is rendered from MS. Something in my modeling technique? I assume if I don't correct this before I UV Map the problem will stay? Thanks in advance for any advice or input.

[Karthogen]

did you add SDS to the Turret?

For some reason it looks like it is trying to smoth that edge

[spacekdet]

Try painting the faces in question with flat (not smooth or auto-facet) shading.
It's one of the icons on the left edge of the Model Material Editor.

[xtetra]

I may have added and then immediately removed one SDS layer at some point by accident, but I am not using SDS in this model...can get smooth enough just with polys. Would adding/removing one layer of SDS cause that and if so how would I correct it?

The affected surfaces are flat, but some of the adjacent faces are beveled.

I did try applying a flat material to them but they rendered out the same way.

One thing you can't really see here is that there is a triangular surface below which slopes up to meet the the front of the turret where I'm having the problem. If I remember correctly I did this via point editing.

When I get home tonight I'm going to try to delete each face and replace with new ones, two triangles to replace each quad. Not sure if that will work.

Thanks for your help. I've had TS 6.6 for a few years and recently started using 7.6 and then 7.61. Most of the models I've made have been fairly simple so I guess in a lot of ways I still fall under the category of "new user." With all that is going on with Caligari and M$ I've been tempted to switch to Blender but I still have some attachment to TS. Just familiarity I guess....

[Jack Edwards]

You can add SDS level on a per selection basis. So it may be that's you've layered element-level SDS. To get rid of that you need to use the Reset SDS tool.

[xtetra]

Thanks Jack, I'll give that a shot this evening.

[xtetra]

Tried "reset all sharpness" but that didn't work. This model has been back and forth across the bridge a few times before I decided that, for this project anyway, all I really need is the modeler. Would that have done anything weird? Perhaps its just my modeling?

[Jack Edwards]

Can you zoom in on the problem area and show us a wire frame?

Model side will let you create illegal geometry, so that is a possibility. When in workspace side you can delete and recreate the problem faces. That may help you find out what's wrong with the geometry if that's the problem. I can't really tell much from the image posted.

[xtetra]

Well, I think I fixed it. I deleted the faces with the odd shadows and then rebuilt them. I also notice that the bottom slope of the front of the turret was an odd shape poly that didn't want to render properly. (I'm fairly certain I built this piece of the model in WS) You can see it in the attached image. I just used "add line" and divided into two tri's which seem to render OK. (The added line is show in red and the "fixed" item at the bottom.

Now just to get material settings right, yagh!

[Jack Edwards]

Wow that is really weird! If you don't mind posting the model, I'll fix the geometry for you and send it back.